San Francisco real estate developer calls Des Moines his personal dream of a 'successful city'

To David Prowler, a longtime developer in San Francisco, Des Moines seems to be the epitome of a "successful city," even if he's never actually visited the Iowa capital.

Prowler begins his opinion piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday with this: "How can you tell whether a city is successful? Here’s a litmus test: Poor people, rich people and people in between can comfortably live there together. It’s a low bar, but since the birth of cities, it’s been one of their strong points."

He admits that no one would call San Francisco, a tech hub grappling with the extremely expensive real-estate and extensive gentrification, successful on those terms. Prowler considers San Francisco "a Great City but not a successful city."

Des Moines had been on the developer's mind since a friend sent him a blog post written by David Byrne in 2014 in which the Talking Heads frontman talks about the Iowa capital as a place where "folks of different races and folks with different backgrounds enjoying their city — rather than keeping to themselves, isolated, as I have witnessed in many other places."

This was Byrne witnessing a downtown metro area that was coming to life after years of concerted development and revitalization by the city. Prowler goes on to talk about Des Moines' median rent and low unemployment rate, numbers that stick out to anyone when comparing it to larger cities.

► From 2014: Byrne: Des Moines 'moved and inspired' me

After listing the modest but respectable cultural attractions in the city and even giving a shout out to the East Village gay bar The Blazing Saddle, Prowler concludes: "Des Moines won’t make any list of the World’s Great Cities. It’s no tourist attraction or tech mecca. And it doesn’t make a lot of headlines beyond the presidential primary season.

"All I know about Des Moines I learned from the internet. I plan to never, ever visit the city because I prefer to imagine it: the flip side of San Francisco, in a good way — the Des Moines of my dreams."

Over a phone call with the Register after the opinion piece's publication, Prowler discussed the concepts that make a "successful city," the question of who a city should be for, and discussed the complex realities of the real Des Moines, where the minimum wage is still $7.25 and affordable housing is a real issue.

Though Prowler promised to never soil his dream of Des Moines observing it up close, he has received an open invitation to visit at any time and claims to be taking it into consideration.

Aaron Calvin covers trending news for the Register. Reach him at acalvin@registermedia.com or 515-556-9097.

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